Shooting the Stechkin: How Does It Measure Up?

I have been curious to try shooting a Stechkin machine pistol for a while, and now thanks to Movie Armaments Group in Toronto, I have a chance to!

I hate to be a downer, but my takeaway from this experience is that the Stechkin is little more than a range toy, at least in fully automatic. With the sights reciprocating back and forth on the slide, I found it impossible to maintain any sort of sight picture while firing. In semiauto it was fine, and nicely accurate as one would expect form a stocked pistol. But the automatic mode is really something for experts only – exactly the opposite of the men who were issued the Stechkin.